Arc welding systems which feed a wire electrode toward a workpiece are well known in the art. Such arc welding systems often include a welding gun operatively connected to a wire feeder apparatus, and a welding power source operatively connected to the wire feeder apparatus. The speed at which the wire electrode is fed toward the workpiece may be set or selected by a user via the wire feeder apparatus. The welding power source provides the electric current which is provided to the wire electrode.
In a wire electrode fed arc welding system, burnback time is a relatively short period of time occurring at the end of a weld when the wire feed stops but electric current is still applied to the wire electrode. This allows the wire electrode to be burned back such that it does not stick in the resultant weld. In a typical arc welding system, when a user releases a trigger on a welding gun after completing a weld, a wire feeder stops advancing the wire electrode toward the weld, but electric current is still applied to the wire electrode during the burnback time.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional, traditional, and proposed approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such approaches with embodiments of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.